It's raining. I woke up this morning still full from last night's dinner, thinking about my navy blue Hunter wellies. I mentally perused the aisle at the Long Beach Southeast Farmers Market, the weather stealing my usual excitement for the promise of organic strawberries and a fresh bouquet of white lilies. I wanted to stay in bed with my new purchase from yesterday's Literary Women's Festival of Authors. Suddenly, a thought.
I CAN.
It's March 2nd. My month as a locavore has officially come to a close.
"Heading to the farmers market?" My roommate asked.
"Nope. Not today."
When I set up this project, I purposely picked February for my locavore experiment. February has the fewest number of days. As I suspected, this month has been a greater challenge than last month's cash diet. Surprisingly, and despite my reluctance to head out into the rain today, I'm not eager to leave it behind.
I thought this month was going to be about losing the last five pounds of "unhappy lawyer" weight. It was possibly going to be about juicier oranges, and probably about feeling better about spending my hard-sought money on groceries. It quickly became apparent that it was about more than that. It was about connection.
Food is connection to the environment. We meet friends, dates, and potential clients for lunches and dinners. We have entire holidays centered around eating too much and passing out in front of football games. And yet, most of us, myself included, remain disconnected from the food lining our fridges and pantries. In eating my way through this month, I learned about orange groves in Orange County, bee colonies in Inglewood, and the reproductive habits of goats in the Mojave Desert. And for the first time since I was old enough to witness the power of the ocean, I felt connected to my environment. It became more than just a pretty picture, it became a source of nourishment.
Food is connection to people. It's Bread Guy who remembers the 7-grain wheat loaf you bought last week and recommends something new for you to try. It's Flower Man who learns about your affinity for lilacs and throws an extra bouquet into your bundle at the end of the day. Cheese Lady who proudly gives you an aged cheddar sample to try because it tastes exactly like pecorino romano. Eating local is about more than improving your health and enticing your taste buds with seasonal produce; its about the people who's hard work brings food to your table. People who will, if you allow them to, get to know you. People who will make your large-ish city feel like a small town.
Food is connection to creativity. As usual, I charged into this month with a lot of enthusiasm and very little know-how, craving the chance to try something--anything new. My roommate, who is. . . . um, settled in his ways, was less excited about this venture into the culinary abyss. But creativity is connection to our own originality, and what I am starting to suspect is that the desire to be original, to be authentic, to create and to be creative is a force that is even more powerful than fear of the unknown. As he grabbed his coat and his wallet to head out into the rain this morning, I asked where he was going.
"To the farmers market. I think I might buy some cod for fish tacos. Are you gonna make tortillas?"
I've never made tortillas in my life. The experiment continues.
Overall grade for this month: A-
Knowing what I know now, will I continue? Well, it doesn't get more convenient than having someone else pick up your fruits and veggies and bring them to your house. The Beachgreens deliveries will definitely continue. As for the farmers market, I don't have to go every week, do I?
Yoga: 10 classes this month. Killing it. A+
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Double Feature: What I'm Running To: Sleeping with a Friend by Neon Trees
Why am I running to Sleeping with a Friend by Neon Trees? Oh, no reason . . . but seriously, this song gets in your head in the kind of way that's typically reserved for songs by Robert Palmer, or Soft Cell, or Katy Perry. I will often find myself sitting at my desk, flipping through files . . . when I just start humming "ooohh, ooohhh, you got me in the moooood, mood . . ." And then it's all over. So stay in school kids. Then one day, you too can get a job with an office door that closes. And then you can dance with yourself while singing NSFW songs under your breath.
An Apple Grows in Long Beach; or Local is as Local Does
It's Sunday, February 23rd. I am exactly six posts behind. What happened? Three words. Mercury. In. Retrograde. If you are not hippy dippy trippy, you might have heard that Mercury was in retrograde as you browsed your horoscope on your iPhone and disregarded it the way I do when I hear any news story that begins with the letters DOW. So here's the Reader's Digest explanation. The mechanical details of our lives are influenced not only by the position of our planet in the solar system, but the position of other planets as well. Ever woken up on or around your 29th birthday and realized that your life didn't look anything like you thought it would? Or it did, and you were completely miserable anyway? Most likely you were in the midst of a Saturn return. Every 29 years, Saturn returns to the position it was in when you were born and throws your life into complete chaos. Total f-ing mayhem (for more information, see Lola Versus. It's my fave Greta Gerwig joint.). But I digress.
Mercury is in retrograde 3-4 times every year for roughly three weeks a turn. When Mercury is in retrograde, it appears to be travelling backward in the sky. Something to do with its position to the earth and the sun, blah, blah, blah. Since Mercury is thought to effect communication, mental clarity, truth, travel, and interestingly, writing, Mercury traveling backward (or appearing to, anyway), throws all of those things into a tailspin. If over the last three weeks, you have felt generally tangled, tongue-tied, uninspired, argumentative or stuck, you have felt the side effects of Mercury in retrograde. So what I have been doing during this period of general emotional malaise? Aside from a spirited argument with my Dad that my eternal fate is to be the Gayle to someone else's Oprah, a whole lot of nothing. Okay. I've been binge watching Orange is the New Black and losing horrifically in WordFeud. That's what I've been doing. Mercury in retrograde is also supposed to be the perfect opportunity to slow down, recharge, and reconnect to a spiritual source. Exactly none of those things happened for me, but maybe they happened for you during the last three weeks. In which case, high five! Good for you! Lucky for me, Mercury comes out of retrograde on Friday, February 28th. And I know that the fog is lifting because I woke up this morning and wanted to knit. I know, my brain is like a bad DJ (again, see Lola Versus). So here is my three-week summary of Month 2, my month as a locavore.
"Dad," I announced to my roommate on February 1st, "We're doing something different in February. . . we're becoming locavores."
"Local whores? Kam, why the hell are we doing that?!"
"Um. No. LocaVores. Like herbiVores. Or carniVores. It means that we're going to be eating locally all month. Local whoring might be more lucrative, but that's not what we're doing."
"I eat here almost every night," he said. "It doesn't get anymore local than that!"
"Local eating is about where our food comes from. Not where it's cooked."
"My food comes from the Trader Joe's on Bellflower."
Sigh.
So what is a locavore and why am I forcing my roommate into becoming one? A locavore, or someone who belongs to a local food movement, is someone who has made a commitment to eating foods that are grown or produced within a certain distance from the eater's residence. In general, it means not eating tomatoes from Ecuador. (Pro Tip: when you are talking about joining the local food movement to your friends and neighbors, either really enunciate the "V" in "vore," or use the term "local food movement." Otherwise, your friends might think you are becoming a sex worker. Or you can use my dad's term "living la vida local." Good luck with that.)
So why live la vida local? Perhaps you would like to lessen your carbon footprint. Maybe you are concerned about GMOs, and want to know more about where your food comes from. Possibly you would rather see your hard-earned money going to a farmer in your area than lining the pockets of a Monsanto executive. All perfectly good reasons to become a local foodist. Here's why I was local food-curious: I don't know a lot about farm bills, or agricultural policies, or why, if GMOs are not harmful, companies like Monsanto would throw so much money into fighting GMO-labeling bills. What I do know is that I live in a world that is growing increasingly toxic. And I while I know (and begrudgingly accept) that we will never know why most young, otherwise healthy, people get sick, I can't help but wonder what role the typical American food supply plays in our overall health and longevity. It's hard enough trying to eat an apple instead of the heavily-marketed Snickers bar. I don't want to wonder if the GMO-spawned, pesticide-covered Granny Smith I am putting into my mouth is just as likely to make me sick as all of those heavenly layers of milk chocolate, caramel, and nougat. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Anyway, here's what we're doing and how we're doing it:
Step 1: Join a CSA. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. If CSA is too difficult for you to remember, do what my dad does, and call it the mystery box. Seriously. Some CSA's are delivery services, others deliver your subscription to a certain location on a certain day and you have to pick it up. Read the fine print. We subscribed to Beachgreens, which is local to Long Beach, Seal Beach, and parts of Sunset Beach. After discovering that we weren't making it through all of the parsnip in the half fruit, half vegetable original box every week, we downsized to the mostly vegetable studio box, and found that it fits this Goldilocks just right. The Beachgreens Studio Box is $29.99 per week, and this week we received two heads of lettuce, beets, carrots, parsnips, Italian parsley, Swiss chard, kale, about two pounds of oranges and a pound of kiwi.
Step 2: Supplement your CSA with Farmers Market finds. The timing of our CSA delivery every week really couldn't be better. Our mystery box is delivered to our doorstep every Friday afternoon. We take inventory of our local veggie booty on Friday night (exciting, I know. Don't be jealous.) and make a list of anything else we need for the week. Any fruit, vegetables, cheese, fish, bread, nut butters, or herbs that we need for the next week, we pick up at the Southeast Long Beach Farmers Market on Sunday. We spend, on average, about $40 at the Farmers Market every week (Note: my dad LOVES buying wild Alaskan king salmon from the Fish Guy. At $21 per pound, this makes up about half of our farmers market total).
Step 3: Buy any remaining items that you absolutely must have at the grocery store. For us this includes coffee, cream, baking items like flour, baking powder, and yeast, and wine and beer, mostly. For my dad this also includes bananas. Every week he asks if I have seen bananas at the farmers market. Every week I tell him no, because I go to the farmer's market in Long Beach, California, and not the farmers market in Antigua. Bananas grow in tropical climes, which means they are never going to be local. But I would rather he buy his bananas at the grocery store and stay on our local parsnip and cabbage diet than have him completely veer off course and start buying cucumbers from Guatemala again, so I let that go. We spend, on average, about $25 at the grocery store each week.
Here's how it's gone, so far:
Week 1:
Dad: "How am I supposed to plan what to make every week if I don't know what's going to be in our mystery box?!"
Me: "Look in the box first, and then plan your menu for the week. You're on an adventure. This is how the pilgrims did it."
Dad: "I don't think the pilgrims got mystery boxes."
Me: Sigh.
Week 2:
Dad: "This is how I like to cook; quality ingredients made with minimal preparation. And look, I cooked fennel!"
Week 3:
Me: "Did you try the honey? It's good, huh?"
Dad: "Yeah, that is really good honey."
Me: "It's from Inglewood."
Dad: "You mean it's inner city honey?"
Me: "Yeah, but I don't know if the bees were Bloods or Crips. That's not a problem for you, is it?"
Week 4:
Dad: "Guess what kind of pasta sauce this is?"
Me: "I dunno."
Dad: "It's PARSNIP sauce!"
Me. "Wow, Dad. Who knew you could make pasta sauce from parsnip?" (Aside: did I mention that we had to get REALLY creative with the parsnips?)
Dad: You know, I think this experiment has actually made me a better cook!"
And also, flowers. Every week, I look through the buckets of flowers the flower guy has at the farmer's market. Flower Guy now recognizes me and points out what he has that is new, and what plants are better quality with firmer buds and stronger stems. My roommate has not noticed the flowers once, but my days are now scented with French lilacs and white lilies.
My so here are my grades for the last threeish weeks: A solid B+. I can't give myself an A because I still eat most of my weekday lunches at the La Salsa a couple of blocks from my office, and I'm pretty sure that there are no black bean burrito trees in Orange County or its surrounds.
Yoga: 8 classes in February so far. I'm kicking ass in the yoga challenge. If only they could all be this easy. . .
 |
| I'm gonna call you Dandelion. |
 |
| Vision Board Mandate: Eat Whole Foods --not to be confused with Eat at Whole Foods |
"Local whores? Kam, why the hell are we doing that?!"
"Um. No. LocaVores. Like herbiVores. Or carniVores. It means that we're going to be eating locally all month. Local whoring might be more lucrative, but that's not what we're doing."
"I eat here almost every night," he said. "It doesn't get anymore local than that!"
"Local eating is about where our food comes from. Not where it's cooked."
"My food comes from the Trader Joe's on Bellflower."
Sigh.
So what is a locavore and why am I forcing my roommate into becoming one? A locavore, or someone who belongs to a local food movement, is someone who has made a commitment to eating foods that are grown or produced within a certain distance from the eater's residence. In general, it means not eating tomatoes from Ecuador. (Pro Tip: when you are talking about joining the local food movement to your friends and neighbors, either really enunciate the "V" in "vore," or use the term "local food movement." Otherwise, your friends might think you are becoming a sex worker. Or you can use my dad's term "living la vida local." Good luck with that.)
So why live la vida local? Perhaps you would like to lessen your carbon footprint. Maybe you are concerned about GMOs, and want to know more about where your food comes from. Possibly you would rather see your hard-earned money going to a farmer in your area than lining the pockets of a Monsanto executive. All perfectly good reasons to become a local foodist. Here's why I was local food-curious: I don't know a lot about farm bills, or agricultural policies, or why, if GMOs are not harmful, companies like Monsanto would throw so much money into fighting GMO-labeling bills. What I do know is that I live in a world that is growing increasingly toxic. And I while I know (and begrudgingly accept) that we will never know why most young, otherwise healthy, people get sick, I can't help but wonder what role the typical American food supply plays in our overall health and longevity. It's hard enough trying to eat an apple instead of the heavily-marketed Snickers bar. I don't want to wonder if the GMO-spawned, pesticide-covered Granny Smith I am putting into my mouth is just as likely to make me sick as all of those heavenly layers of milk chocolate, caramel, and nougat. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Anyway, here's what we're doing and how we're doing it:
 |
| Inside the Mystery Box |
Step 2: Supplement your CSA with Farmers Market finds. The timing of our CSA delivery every week really couldn't be better. Our mystery box is delivered to our doorstep every Friday afternoon. We take inventory of our local veggie booty on Friday night (exciting, I know. Don't be jealous.) and make a list of anything else we need for the week. Any fruit, vegetables, cheese, fish, bread, nut butters, or herbs that we need for the next week, we pick up at the Southeast Long Beach Farmers Market on Sunday. We spend, on average, about $40 at the Farmers Market every week (Note: my dad LOVES buying wild Alaskan king salmon from the Fish Guy. At $21 per pound, this makes up about half of our farmers market total).
Step 3: Buy any remaining items that you absolutely must have at the grocery store. For us this includes coffee, cream, baking items like flour, baking powder, and yeast, and wine and beer, mostly. For my dad this also includes bananas. Every week he asks if I have seen bananas at the farmers market. Every week I tell him no, because I go to the farmer's market in Long Beach, California, and not the farmers market in Antigua. Bananas grow in tropical climes, which means they are never going to be local. But I would rather he buy his bananas at the grocery store and stay on our local parsnip and cabbage diet than have him completely veer off course and start buying cucumbers from Guatemala again, so I let that go. We spend, on average, about $25 at the grocery store each week.
Here's how it's gone, so far:
Week 1:
Dad: "How am I supposed to plan what to make every week if I don't know what's going to be in our mystery box?!"
Me: "Look in the box first, and then plan your menu for the week. You're on an adventure. This is how the pilgrims did it."
Dad: "I don't think the pilgrims got mystery boxes."
Me: Sigh.
Week 2:
Dad: "This is how I like to cook; quality ingredients made with minimal preparation. And look, I cooked fennel!"
 |
| Local Lilies |
Me: "Did you try the honey? It's good, huh?"
Dad: "Yeah, that is really good honey."
Me: "It's from Inglewood."
Dad: "You mean it's inner city honey?"
Me: "Yeah, but I don't know if the bees were Bloods or Crips. That's not a problem for you, is it?"
Week 4:
Dad: "Guess what kind of pasta sauce this is?"
Me: "I dunno."
Dad: "It's PARSNIP sauce!"
Me. "Wow, Dad. Who knew you could make pasta sauce from parsnip?" (Aside: did I mention that we had to get REALLY creative with the parsnips?)
Dad: You know, I think this experiment has actually made me a better cook!"
And also, flowers. Every week, I look through the buckets of flowers the flower guy has at the farmer's market. Flower Guy now recognizes me and points out what he has that is new, and what plants are better quality with firmer buds and stronger stems. My roommate has not noticed the flowers once, but my days are now scented with French lilacs and white lilies.
My so here are my grades for the last threeish weeks: A solid B+. I can't give myself an A because I still eat most of my weekday lunches at the La Salsa a couple of blocks from my office, and I'm pretty sure that there are no black bean burrito trees in Orange County or its surrounds.
Yoga: 8 classes in February so far. I'm kicking ass in the yoga challenge. If only they could all be this easy. . .
Friday, January 31, 2014
January Wrap-Up
Well January, it's time to part ways. We laughed. We cried. We saved. $283.50 to be exact. While this is significantly less than my original January goal (see set backs and missteps 1-3 below), it's $283.50 more than I would have otherwise saved. And if I happen to have 11 similar less than stellar months in 2014, I will have saved $3,402. Now that number isn't so shabby. $3,402 can buy many, many handbags . . . or a little piece of mind. Strangely, I'm starting to think that I'd actually like the piece of mind more than a new piece of black leather with gold-toned hardware.
Time out. What is happening to me?! Am I actually becoming a saver? Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Unfortunately for my carefree spending habits, however, I do feel compelled to continue this painful paper experiment into next month. So while I won't be reporting every week on my life in Lincolns, know that I will be imperfectly carrying on with my cash diet. At least through February.
Here is my final January report card: Cash Diet Challenge: B-, not terrific, not terrible. January yoga total: 17 classes! I doubled my goal of attending 8 classes this month, which puts me way ahead of schedule. I may have to re-evaluate my 100 class goal if I maintain this pace.
January, it's been real. February let's go local.
Time out. What is happening to me?! Am I actually becoming a saver? Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Unfortunately for my carefree spending habits, however, I do feel compelled to continue this painful paper experiment into next month. So while I won't be reporting every week on my life in Lincolns, know that I will be imperfectly carrying on with my cash diet. At least through February.
Here is my final January report card: Cash Diet Challenge: B-, not terrific, not terrible. January yoga total: 17 classes! I doubled my goal of attending 8 classes this month, which puts me way ahead of schedule. I may have to re-evaluate my 100 class goal if I maintain this pace.
January, it's been real. February let's go local.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Party Like it's Your (Grandma's) Birthday
Happy birthday to my Grandma, a very Unique Highly Sensitive Person. What is a Unique Highly Sensitive Person, you ask? You may want to ask Google. And you may want to ask Google about "feeling uncomfortable on your birthday." That's what my Grandma did. What she discovered is that she is a Highly Sensitive Person. And that there are other Highly Sensitive Persons also feeling uncomfortable on their birthdays. Some of them even blog about it and put their high sensitivity on display for all of the Internets to see. This is seems a little counter-intuitive to me, but maybe it's like some kind of therapy. Like aversion therapy, but the opposite.
Highly Sensitive Persons aside, here's how I did this week. After my trip down the TJ Maxx rabbit hole last week, I started the week with my resolve stronger than ever. But by Friday, my mood was tanked due to a particularly stressful week at work, poor sleeping patterns (confirmed by my Jawbone), and application disappointment. Despite my best effort to convince myself that this episode of professional rejection was for the best, I was still disappointed that I had gotten my hopes up and my application was not permitted to pass through the pearly gates manned by the selection committee. I sought comfort in the warm welcoming glow of the Maxx. I know what you're thinking, Wha?! Wasn't this the birthplace of this week's shame spiral? Yes. But unlike last week, I came in prepared. Ish. I'm not going to lie, I walked in intending to shop for my Grandma, and left with three items for me. But, come on, on the real tip, you know you do that too. So I left the store with my wallet about $100 lighter. But unlike last week, I paid in cash. And it hurt. Counting out the bills for the cashier, I was barely able to resist the urge to pull the bills back from her and return them to my yellow Rebecca Minkoff. I think I just may be growing as a person. Damn.
Here are my grades: Cash Diet Challenge: B. I faced my tempter and almost resisted temptation. Almost. TJ Maxx, why can't I quit you?!!!
Yoga: 3 classes due to extreme hiking-related sore calves. This brings my monthly total to 14. So far I am killing the yoga challenge. My friend Jorts says that if I actually want to see any of my unhappy lawyer weight detach itself from my hips, I need to quit the "sauna stretching" and do some cardio. Spoken like a true hot vinyasa flow virgin. My hot vinyasa flow class burns about 590 calories in 60 minutes. Check that, runnerboy.
Highly Sensitive Persons aside, here's how I did this week. After my trip down the TJ Maxx rabbit hole last week, I started the week with my resolve stronger than ever. But by Friday, my mood was tanked due to a particularly stressful week at work, poor sleeping patterns (confirmed by my Jawbone), and application disappointment. Despite my best effort to convince myself that this episode of professional rejection was for the best, I was still disappointed that I had gotten my hopes up and my application was not permitted to pass through the pearly gates manned by the selection committee. I sought comfort in the warm welcoming glow of the Maxx. I know what you're thinking, Wha?! Wasn't this the birthplace of this week's shame spiral? Yes. But unlike last week, I came in prepared. Ish. I'm not going to lie, I walked in intending to shop for my Grandma, and left with three items for me. But, come on, on the real tip, you know you do that too. So I left the store with my wallet about $100 lighter. But unlike last week, I paid in cash. And it hurt. Counting out the bills for the cashier, I was barely able to resist the urge to pull the bills back from her and return them to my yellow Rebecca Minkoff. I think I just may be growing as a person. Damn.
Here are my grades: Cash Diet Challenge: B. I faced my tempter and almost resisted temptation. Almost. TJ Maxx, why can't I quit you?!!!
Yoga: 3 classes due to extreme hiking-related sore calves. This brings my monthly total to 14. So far I am killing the yoga challenge. My friend Jorts says that if I actually want to see any of my unhappy lawyer weight detach itself from my hips, I need to quit the "sauna stretching" and do some cardio. Spoken like a true hot vinyasa flow virgin. My hot vinyasa flow class burns about 590 calories in 60 minutes. Check that, runnerboy.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
What I'm Running To: All Eyes on You by St. Lucia
Full Disclosure: I'm actually not running to this song right now. Because I'm not actually running. In related news, you know what's deceptive? Hiking. Hiking is a liar. It seems like it should be easy and meditative because its WALKING. Guess what? 3.6 miles uphill is not walking. That's a death march. And now I can't pick up my legs. If, however, I wasn't clunking around like Shrek, I would be running, and I would be running to this song. Because it's awesome.
If you're now seriously deja vu'ing, and not sure why, you've probably heard this song in the first trailer for HBO's new comedy, Looking.
If you're now seriously deja vu'ing, and not sure why, you've probably heard this song in the first trailer for HBO's new comedy, Looking.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)